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CHAPTER 14

Improper Mourning Rites.1You are children of the LORD, your God. You shall not gash yourselves nor shave the hair above your foreheads for the dead.a2For you are a people holy to the LORD, your God; the LORD, your God, has chosen you from all the peoples on the face of the earth to be a people specially his own.b

Clean and Unclean Animals.3You shall not eat any abominable thing.c4d These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat,
5the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the mountain sheep.
6Any among the animals that has divided hooves, with the foot cloven in two, and that chews the cud you may eat.
7But you shall not eat any of the following that chew the cud or have cloven hooves: the camel, the hare, and the rock badger, which indeed chew the cud, but do not have divided hooves; they are unclean for you.
8And the pig, which indeed has divided hooves, with cloven foot, but does not chew the cud, is unclean for you. Their flesh you shall not eat, and their dead bodies you shall not touch.

9These you may eat, of all that live in the water: whatever has both fins and scales you may eat,
10but all those that lack either fins or scales you shall not eat; they are unclean for you.

11You may eat all clean birds.
12* But you shall not eat any of the following: the griffon vulture, the bearded vulture, the black vulture,
13the various kites and falcons,
14all kinds of crows,
15the eagle owl, the kestrel, the long-eared owl, all species of hawks,
16the little owl, the screech owl, the barn owl,
17the horned owl, the osprey, the cormorant,
18the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe, and the bat.
19* All winged insects are also unclean for you and shall not be eaten.
20Any clean winged creatures you may eat.

21You shall not eat the carcass of any animal that has died of itself; but you may give it to a resident alien within your gates to eat, or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a people holy to the LORD, your God.e

Tithes.22Each year you shall tithe all the produce of your seed that grows in the field;f23then in the place which the LORD, your God, chooses as the dwelling place of his nameg you shall eat in his presence the tithe of your grain, wine and oil, as well as the firstlings of your herd and flock, that you may learn always to fear the LORD, your God.
24h But if, when the LORD, your God, blesses you, the journey is too much for you and you are not able to bring your tithe, because the place which the LORD, your God, chooses to put his name is too far for you,
25you may exchange the tithe for money, and with the money securely in hand, go to the place which the LORD, your God, chooses.
26You may then exchange the money for whatever you desire, oxen or sheep, wine or beer, or anything else you want, and there in the presence of the LORD, your God, you shall consume it and rejoice, you and your household together.i27But do not neglect the Levite within your gates, for he has no hereditary portion with you.j

28k At the end of every third year you shall bring out all the tithes of your produce for that year and deposit them within your own communities,
29that the Levite who has no hereditary portion with you, and also the resident alien, the orphan and the widow within your gates, may come and eat and be satisfied; so that the LORD, your God, may bless you in all that you undertake.

* [14:12–18] The identification of several of the birds in these verses is uncertain.

* [14:19–20] Lv 11:20–23 suggests that the unclean winged insects are those that walk on the ground; the clean winged creatures are those that leap on the ground, such as certain species of locusts.

* [14:21] Boil a young goat in its mother’s milk: the meaning of this regulation is obscure but it may have a humane concern similar to the prohibitions against slaughtering an animal and its young on the same day (Lv 22:27–28) and capturing a mother bird along with her fledgling or eggs (Dt 22:6–7). See note on Ex 23:19.

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